This Easy Homemade Spicy Salsa Recipe makes the best tasting fresh salsa in just minutes! It’s full of fresh flavor and so easy to make. If you love restaurant-style salsa you will love this recipe. Serve it with your favorite taco, burrito or enchilada recipes or scoop it up with tortilla chips.
I love easy to make recipes. I love it even more when I can make it with ingredients already in my kitchen. This recipe uses canned tomatoes, which I always have on hand, so I can quickly make this any time I get a craving for delicious spicy salsa.
I save myself extra time by prepping several jalapenos at the same time. I use what I need for the current recipe and then freeze the extra. It makes it so easy when I have a recipe that calls for jalapeno. I’ll pass along some of my freezer tips below.
Easy Homemade Spicy Salsa Recipe
While I love to use fresh tomatoes in Pico de Gallo I don’t often have them on hand in the refrigerator. That’s why I love this easy recipe. There’s always canned tomatoes in the house so I can quickly make salsa to go with meals or simply to use as a dip with tortilla chips.
Forget about those store-bought salsas and just whip up a batch of your own with what I think is the best homemade salsa recipe.
Here’s a few tips to help you make this delicious salsa:
- If you have diced fire-roasted tomatoes go with those. They add a bit of a smokey flavor to the salsa. If you don’t then just use whatever diced tomatoes you have on hand.
- Drain off some of the extra liquid in the diced tomatoes. It helps to keep the salsa from being watery. You can save the tomato liquid and use it in other recipes such as soup, spaghetti or any recipe you might be making with canned tomatoes. The additional liquid often doesn’t change whatever recipe it is being used in.
- Use jarred minced garlic if available. While fresh garlic has great flavor, I’ve find that the tomato mixture isn’t blended long enough to turn the whole cloves into small enough pieces for the salsa. I find the jarred variety easier to use.
- Roughly chop the onion, green bell pepper and jalapeno so you don’t end up with pieces that are too big in the finished salsa. Like the garlic, the onion and jalapeno aren’t processed long enough to make the pieces small enough for the salsa.
Ingredients for Easy Homemade Spicy Salsa:
- Canned Tomatoes – use fire roasted diced tomatoes if available. If not, use regular diced tomatoes or even diced tomatoes with green chiles.
- Yellow Onion – use a small onion or half a medium onion. You can also swap out the yellow onion for a white onion for a milder onion flavor. You can also use red onion as well. All taste delicious in this recipe.
- Green Bell Pepper – use half a bell pepper.
- Jalapeño peppers – adds a bit of spice to the salsa. You’ll want to wear disposable gloves while you remove the seeds from the jalapenos. Removing the seeds helps to control the heat of the pepper. If you like hot salsa then you can give this more heat by swapping out the jalapeno pepper with something even hotter such as a habanero pepper or serrano peppers.
- Garlic – use fresh or minced jarred garlic. Don’t have fresh or jarred garlic? You can use garlic powder in place of fresh garlic. One clove of fresh garlic is equal to 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder or granulated garlic.
- Lime Juice – use fresh lime juice or bottle lime juice. If you’d like to give this salsa a bit more lime flavor add a bit of lime zest to the salsa.
- Herbs and Spices including oregano, smoked paprika, crushed red pepper flakes, fresh cilantro, salt and black pepper.
How to make Easy Homemade Spicy Salsa:
Drain off the juice from the canned tomatoes. You can store the juice in a covered airtight container in the refrigerator and use it in any tomato based recipe you might be making. My favorite recipe to use the juice is soup.
Step 1: In a food processor or a blender, place the onion, green pepper, jalapeno (wearing gloves remove the seeds before using) and garlic cloves. Pulse the food processor/blender a few times to coarsely chop the vegetables.
Step 2: Add the drained tomatoes, lime juice, herbs and spices. Continue to pulse the food processor/blender until the salsa is the consistency you prefer. I like to process the salsa until it’s in small pieces but not so small that it is starting to become smooth. You can make it as chunky as you prefer.
Step 3: Serve your salsa up with some tortilla chips for dipping.
Don’t have a food processor or a blender? You can also use an immersion blender to make this salsa. Just follow the instructions above but place all the ingredients into a large bowl and pulse with the immersion blender until it gets to the consistency you want.
You can also use this easy salsa recipe to top your favorite Mexican dishes such as:
How to store homemade salsa:
Store any leftover homemade salsa in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Can I freeze homemade salsa?
Yes it can easily be frozen. Place your salsa in a freezer safe container and freeze for 6 months. Don’t forget to label the container with the name of the recipe and the date.
What’s the difference between salsa and salsa roja?
There are two types of salsa that can be found in stores and at your favorite restaurant…. salsa verde (green salsa made with tomatillos) and salsa roja (red salsa made with tomatoes). As this is a salsa made with tomatoes it would be a salsa roja.
Personally I think of salsa has being a bit chunkier than the salsa roja that I get in my favorite Mexican restaurant. Their salsa has finer pieces of tomato and is more saucy in texture. Many of the salsa roja recipes I’ve seen are a cooked salsa where the basic ingredients are cooked in a large pot to soften them before they are blended together into a sauce like consistency.
In the end salsa made with tomatoes and salsa roja are made with the same ingredients. It seems that the texture will vary from recipe to recipe. If you are a fan of chunky salsa then give this recipe a try.
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Easy Homemade Spicy Salsa
Equipment
- Blender
Ingredients
- 2 cans diced tomatoes 14 ounces
- 1/2 Yellow Onion diced
- 1 Green Bell Pepper seeded, diced
- 1 jalapeno seeded, chopped
- 2-3 tablespoons fresh cilantro chopped
- 2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 teaspoon Ground Cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon Oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Drain off the juice from the canned tomatoes and set aside.
- In a food processor or a blender, place the onion, green pepper, jalapeno and garlic clove. Pulse the food processor/blender a few times to coarsely chop the vegetables.
- Add the drained tomatoes, lime juice, herbs and spices. Continue to pulse the food processor/blender until the salsa is the consistency you prefer.
- Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
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